{"id":7690,"date":"2022-09-23T16:56:51","date_gmt":"2022-09-24T00:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/?p=7690"},"modified":"2022-10-29T19:17:56","modified_gmt":"2022-10-30T03:17:56","slug":"the-music-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/archives\/7690","title":{"rendered":"The Music of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Moose Fight<\/strong> – Kincaid Park<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Boys will be boys. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Happy Wife captured this recently while at work. She leads bike tours for tourists. They’d just descended a long hill when all of a sudden a startled cow moose crosses the trail, and then further into the woods here comes two would-be suitors. Considerable head-butting and gnashing of antlers ensued. All the while the cow looked on from a cautious distance to see which bull would emerge victorious. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t have to be this way you say? Well, no, I suppose not. But there it is. So I presume the boys fight because, well\u2026how else are they to work out their differences? And the girl? She will prefer to mate the winner because nobody wants to fck a Loser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the layman\u2019s explanation of what\u2019s going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ask an evolutionary biologist for an explanation, and you\u2019ll hear that moose just want to make more moose. Pushed to say more, the biologist might grudgingly say that if you insist on imputing \u201cwants\u201d and \u201cdesires\u201d to a moose, or any organism for that matter, from mold to man, then there is really only one desire, one \u201cas-if\u201d goal* of every organism, and that is to reproduce successfully. Hence, all the traits and behaviors an organism expresses are in service to that one, simple goal, period. Further, if Theodious Dobzhansky<\/a> is to be believed, as I assume most biologists do, nothing in biology makes sense outside the viewpoint of evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, for our two uni-goal warriors up there, there\u2019s a problem; there are not enough girls to go around. And they\u2019re picky. And so the deeper explanation in biology for why the boys fight, is to exhibit to the on-looking girl his superior constitution, essentially, \u201cmate with me, honey, and our brood will be large and fecund!<\/em>\u201d And that second feature of the would-be children is important \u2013 fecund. Because evolution \u201ccares\u201d about sustainability, merely having lots of children isn\u2019t what makes an organism the winner in the game of life, having lots of grand kids <\/em>does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

OK, all that is boilerplate evolutionary biology. But there\u2019s one more thing to get to, something called the modern synthesis. It\u2019s basically an update to Darwin\u2019s original theory of evolution to include the discovery of DNA (genes) as the particle of inheritance. Darwin proposed that organisms evolved over time into new forms, but he had no idea how that worked. Now we do. In sexual reproduction, roughly equal portions of seed DNA are contributed by mom and dad, then variably mixed (recombined) to constitute the genome of the child. This is now proven molecular biology, the stuff of modern genetics. Nothing importantly controversial about it. Until\u2026.until! Along comes selfish gene theory<\/a>. On this view, it\u2019s not the organism whose only goal in life is to reproduce, no, it\u2019s actually the DNA itself! Stay with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are, to say the very least, some chinks in this theory. For starters \u2013 DNA that makes a boy a good fighter makes him a good dad? It\u2019s not the least bit obvious to me why that would be. Even assuming biologists knew which parts of the DNA (genes) those were \u2013 and take my word for it they don\u2019t \u2013 DNA is invisible to the girl moose, just as it is to every other organism on earth. I can\u2019t read the sequence of your genes, nor you mine. Moose can\u2019t do it either. DNA is tightly packed away in the nucleus of the cells. Invisible to organisms and natural selection. So the belief that our fainting princess, whose only goal in life is to make babies, is off trembling in the woods, \u201cselecting\u201d the victor who will get to lay her based on her measure of his superior genes, is not only wrong, it\u2019s ridiculous. It\u2019s simply not possible for an organism to asses the quality of another\u2019s genome<\/a>. It\u2019s this kind of silliness far too many biologists engage in when they forget metaphors are not science. Worse is when science writers and others who should know better believe it\u2019s true. Tell me you haven\u2019t read articles or books where the author goes on and on saying something to the effect of \u201cThis is of course what our genes want us to do, which may or may not be what we want to do.\u201d For a theory that purports organisms are nothing more than a bag of genes, it\u2019s hard for me to understand how the two could be different?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or take for instance this article reporting on a study of moose behavior during rut in Alaska (emphasis <\/strong><\/span>mine)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biologists spent four autumns tracking and observing moose in Denali, listening to grunts and moans and recording behavior, including fights. They concluded that the females actually foment male-male aggression.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s indirect control,\u201d Bowyer said. \u201cThey\u2019re manipulating a mating system in which you think they didn\u2019t really have choice.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding the right <\/strong><\/span>mate at the right time is critical for successful reproduction, the study points out, because of the \u201cextremely synchronized manner\u201d in which cows give birth in May and a restricted growing season, which limits young moose\u2019s opportunities to eat enough food to survive the harsh winters.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cright<\/span>\u201d mate? Not just any mate, no, the boy moose with the best genes for reproducing more re-productively successful moose, of course! And turns out the girls instigate the fights! The boys don\u2019t by nature want to fight, no, they\u2019re goaded into it by girls in estrus. Why on earth would girl moose do that? Duh. So she can see which one is the best fighter. But why is victory in fight a proxy for superior reproductive genes again? Couldn\u2019t it be the Loser who has better genes for reproduction?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Are you a creationist?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, you just don\u2019t believe DNA is inherited by the child?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course DNA (genes) is the particle of inheritance. But it\u2019s not the particle of selection as proposed by selfish gene theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you believe moose have an innate desire to reproduce, right?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then what\u2019s your problem?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that metaphors are not science. The theory that every organism is under the spell of natural selection, where the ultimate \u201cas-if\u201d goal of life is to get one\u2019s genes into the next generation, and everything an organism is, is in service to that single goal, is nonsense. Selfish gene theory, is bullshit. There are countless examples in nature that contradict the theory<\/s> metaphor. You need only to make good observations, be skeptical, and challenge prevailing assumptions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/span>The word \u201cgoal\u201d is used here in a metaphorical sense (thus the \u201cas-if\u201d part), merely as a way to talk about the outcomes of natural selection, even as everyone agrees there is no goal in the usual sense attributable to evolution. At least, for the evolutionary biologist there isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boys will be boys. Happy Wife captured this recently while at work. She leads bike tours for tourists. They’d just descended a long hill when all of a sudden a startled cow moose crosses the trail, and then further into the woods here comes two would-be suitors. Considerable head-butting and gnashing of antlers ensued. All […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7690"}],"version-history":[{"count":67,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7798,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7690\/revisions\/7798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rknibbe.com\/Wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}